The life and letters of Harrison Gray Otis, Federalist, 1765-1848

Front matter

THE LIFE AND LETTERS

OF

1765-1848

Preface

In the following pages I have attempted to describe the life of a man of vigorous and fascinating personality, who was born in Boston ten years before the Revolution commenced, who entered national politics during Washington's second administration, who was a leader in the interesting movement that culminated in the Hartford Convention of 1814, and who lived to take a part in the presidential campaign of 1848. Harrison Gray Otis was not a great statesman, but rather a typical representative of that political and social organization which has passed into history under the name of the Federal or Federalist party. This fact alone has made his biography worth writing from a historical point of view. I have endeavored therefore, not only to relate the events of his life, but critically to describe his ideas, his feelings, and his prejudices, and to discover the motives guiding his action in the political crises of his day. I have not confined myself, however, to political biography, for, in addition to being a politician, Otis was an orator and a lawyer of the very first rank, a leader in social life, and a man whose personality did much to influence the community in which he lived.

I may as well confess to my readers at the start that I am a descendant of Harrison Gray Otis, four generations removed. Contrary to general opinion, I believe that a statesman's biography can best be written by a descendant, if he can preserve the natural sympathy that comes from kinship and family tradition, without sacrificing historical judgment and criticism. My readers can

X

PREFACE best judge how far I have succeeded in keeping the balance.

The materials for this work have been drawn primarily from the papers that Otis left behind him. They are now used for literary purposes for the first time. Confident, as I am, that the well-springs of political action can be traced mainly through the personal correspondence of the actors, I have quoted freely from the Otis manuscripts, and printed such documents of historical value as are too long to be incorporated in the text, after the chapters that they illustrate. Other contemporary political correspondence now available, as well as newspapers and official sources, has been utilized, and an earnest search has been made for manuscript material outside the usual repositories. For secondary material, the few sketches of Otfs's life printed heretofore have proved of little value, beyond giving details of his early life; but the general works and monographs covering the period have afforded me much assistance.

All quotations from manuscript sources are given without change of wording, capitalization, spelling, or punctuation, with the exception that canceled passages have been suppressed, raised letters have been reduced to the line of the text (Gov r rendered as Govr., y e as ye, etc.), and in punctuation, the dash, where obviously ending a sentence, has been replaced by a period. In a very few instances punctuation has been supplied where the lack of it obscured the meaning. It will be understood that all matter printed in the smaller type is quoted.

This undertaking would have been impossible without the assistance and advice rendered by many individuals and institutions. I am indebted most of all to Professor Albert Bushnell Hart, at whose suggestion this work was begun, and under whose direction and encouragement it

PREFACE xi

has been carried out; to Professors Edward Charming and Frederick J. Turner for their helpful criticism; to Mr. Charles K. Bolton, for granting me every facility at the Boston Athenaeum; and to Mr. Worthington C. Ford, for opening to me the manuscript collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, and for giving me his constant personal interest and cooperation. Finally, whatever merit my book may possess is due primarily to the historical training that I have received at Harvard University.

Boston, December, 1912.

Contents

I. Family and Childhood. 1765-1775, ^t. 1-10 1

Forbears — Patriot Otises and Tory Grays — Childhood in Boston — Latin school — Reminiscences of April 19, 1775.

Life at Barnstable — Return to Boston — Changed conditions — Activities of Otis's father — Death of his mother — At Harvard College.

CHAPTER I FAMILY AND CHILDHOOD 1765-1775, jet. 1-10

Harrison Gray Otis was born in Boston, on the 8th day of October, 1765. At that time every one of his three names stood for respectability and long-established position in the Province of Massachusetts Bay. The name of Otis, in particular, was already famous throughout the British Empire.

With his birth, the Otis family reached its sixth generation in America. 1 The pioneers of the family, John Otis, father and son, were yeomen of Glastonbury, Somersetshire, whence they emigrated during the third decade of the seventeenth century, and settled at Hingham in the colony of Massachusetts Bay. The younger John later removed to the township of Barnstable, in the lower part of Cape Cod, and there, near the "Great Marshes," built the substantial homestead that sheltered future generations of Otises. Nothing further seems to be known

1 The facts regarding the earlier Otises are taken from H. N. Otis, "Genealogical and Historical Memoir of Otis Family " (New Eng. Hist. Gen. Reg., ii, 281; iv, 143; also published separately, Boston, 1850); Eliot's Biographical Dictionary ; A. Otis & C. F. Swift, Genealogical Notes of Barnstable Families ; W. H. Whitmore, The Mass. Civil List (Albany, 1870); Alice Brown, Mercy Warren, and Wm. Tudor, James Otis. The family name, during the seventeenth century, was spelled indifferently Otis, Ottis, Oates, Otey.

about him, except that he was fined forty shillings for selling cider in 1675, and died in 1683.

John Otis the third, born at Hingham in 1657, eldest son of the cider-selling John, attained membership in the colonial aristocracy by the familiar route of law and public service. Judge Otis, as he was generally called, held various military and judicial appointments in Barnstable County, and represented the town of Barnstable for twenty successive years in the Great and General Court. In 1708 he was chosen a member of His Majesty's Council for Massachusetts, the highest position that the colony could offer a native son, and until his death in 1727 he was annually reelected to that honourable board. His character was easy-going and genial, with the same humor and charm of manner for which his great-grandson, Harrison Gray Otis, became famous. His sixth child James, the grandfather of Harrison Gray Otis, was born in 1702.

James Otis, like his father, was largely self-educated, and followed a similar career; but he possessed an entirely different temperament. His portrait by Copley shows a man forcible in his opinions, conscious of his dignity, and lacking any trace of humor. "Colonel" James (as he was called, in order to distinguish him from his famous son of the same name), studied law, became, according to John Adams, the "undisputed head of the bar in Barnstable, Plymouth, and Bristol Counties," and in 1748 received the appointment of Attorney-General of the Province. Three years before Harrison Gray Otis was born, in 1762, this distinguished lawyer was elected for the first time to the Council.

Colonel Otis's gradual rise in the estimation of his contemporaries is indicated by the fact that his eldest son's name was placed eleventh in a class of thirty-one on the records of Harvard College, and his youngest son's, second in a class of thirty-five. 2 He never permanently joined the court circles at Boston, however, but resided in his grandfather's homestead at Barnstable, where thirteen children were born to him and his wife Mary Allyne. Infant mortality was high in colonial days, even under the best conditions, and no less than six of the thirteen died within six months of their births. But the record of the survivors shows that quality was not sacrificed to quantity in the family of James and Mary Otis. Of the six who reached maturity, Joseph and Samuel were fairly prominent in the American Revolution, and James and Mercy became leaders in the same cause.

Samuel Allyne Otis, the father of Harrison Gray Otis, was the tenth child of this large family, and the youngest of those who reached maturity. He was born in 1740, graduated from Harvard College in 1759, and then returned to the parental roof with the intention of taking up the study of law. At that time his eldest brother and senior by fifteen years, James Otis "the Patriot," had resided nearly a decade in Boston, and was already the leading lawyer of the province. James, who took a great interest in the education of young Sam, wrote their father in 1760:

Very sure I am, if he should stay a year or two from the time of his degree, before he begins with the law, he will be able to make better progress in one week, than he could now, without a miracle, in six. ... I hold it to be of vast importance that a young man should be able to make some eclat at his opening, which it is vain to expect from one under twenty five: missing of this is very apt to discourage and dispirit him, and what is of worse consequence, may prevent the application of clients ever after. It has been observed before I was born, if a man don't obtain a character in any profession soon after his first appearance, he hardly will ever obtain one. 3

2 Until 1774, class lists at Harvard College were arranged according to the social position of the students' parents. 8 Tudor, James Otis, 11.

Sam followed his brother's advice, but, finding the study of law distasteful, asked his father to set him up as a merchant in Boston. Although the earlier Otises were selfmade men, the Colonel could not but humor his youngest and favorite son. Before long we find advertisements in the Boston Evening Post, to the effect that " Samuel Allyne Otis will sell very cheap, at his store No. 5 South Side of the Town Dock, New Flour, cordage & boltrope, Lead & Shott, New England Rum made under his own inspection etc." As one would expect of a petted younger son, Samuel never developed the high ability of his father and grandfather; but he inherited from the latter, and transmitted to his son, a gift of personal charm and popularity that stood him in good stead in reverses.

Soon after he settled in Boston, Samuel contracted an alliance with Elizabeth, the only daughter of Harrison Gray, and they were married on the last day of 1764. It was the second time that the families were connected by marriage. The Grays were wealthy townspeople, although a newer family than the Otises. Elizabeth's grandfather, Edward Gray, who had emigrated to Boston from Lincolnshire as an apprentice in 1686, became in course of time the owner of large rope-walks, the profit from which allowed him to bring up a family of nine children in considerable luxury. At the time of his death, in 1757, his son Harrison was serving his fourth term as Treasurer and Receiver-General of the Province, a well-remunerated position of great dignity. Harrison Gray married Elizabeth Lewis, the daughter of Ezekiel Lewis, another prominent Boston merchant. Elizabeth Gray, their only daughter and youngest child, was said to have been a beautiful woman; and her character, as we shall have occasion to observe, was one of singular beauty.

After their marriage, Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Allyne Otis purchased a house in Boston near the present Bowdoin Square, adjoining the site of the Revere House. There, on October 8, 1765, their first child was born, and named Harrison Gray Otis after his maternal grandfather. No one, however, thought of calling him Harrison. "Harry" he was nicknamed from the first, and Harry Otis he always remained to his family and friends.

Enough has been said of Harry's forbears to show with what advantages he was endowed from his birth. Of pure English stock, strengthened by five generations on New England soil, and refined by three generations of public service and social position, he could have asked nothing more of heredity. His environment was equally advantageous. Boston, with its surroundings of water, open spaces, and hilly pastures, was then an ideal place in which to bring up a boy. Harry made full use of his opportunities for play and mischief, and developed a rugged constitution that carried him past his eighty-third birthday. He was a sturdy, healthy little fellow, with ruddy cheeks, dark hair, and inquisitive blue eyes. Every year, on Guy Fawkes' day, a new pair of leather breeches was given him, and reserved for "best " so long as the breeches of the previous vintage held out. Thomas Handasyd Perkins, one of his lifelong friends, afterwards said, "Harry Otis was always the handsomest, brightest, and most charming boy of all our companions. Everything he did was better done than any of the rest of us could do it."

Harry was given the best education that the time and place afforded. Luckily for him, the old Puritan ideas of education were much mitigated among such broadminded persons of the upper class as his parents were. His childhood was not clouded by a severe repression of his natural boyish impulses, or by a constant reminder that the mark of Adam was upon him. But he was given a good religious training at home, and sent at an early age to schools where female teachers were unheard of, and where a liberal use was made of the rod. The first school that he attended was on Hanover Street, kept by one Master Griffiths, a queer old fellow who used to reward the good scholars every Saturday by letting them scramble for shellbarks which he threw from his window into the courtyard. At the age of seven, Harry was promoted to the Latin School, where Master John Lovell and his son James were the reigning tyrants. We shall let Mr. Otis recall his school life in his own words : 4

I perfectly remember the day I entered the School, July, 1773, being then seven years and nine months old. Immediately after the end of Commencement week, I repaired, according to the rule prescribed for candidates for admission to the lowest form, to old Master Lovell's house, situate in School Street, nearly opposite the site of the old School house. I was early on the ground, anticipated only by Mr. John Hubbard, who lived near — it being understood that the boys were to take their places on the form in the same routine that they presented themselves at the house. The probationary exercise was reading a few verses in the Bible. Having passed muster in this, I was admitted as second boy on the lowest form.

I attended school from that time until April, 1775, (the day of Lexington battle), being then on the second form. The School was divided into seven classes. A separate bench or form was allotted to each, besides a skipping form, appropriated for a few boys who were intended to be pushed forward one year in advance. The books studied the first year were Cheever's Accidence, a small Nomenclature, and Corderius' Colloquies. The second year, Aesop's Fables, and towards the close of it, Eutropius and Ward's Lilly's Grammar. The third year Eutropius and Grammar continued, and a book commenced

4 From a letter of December 17, 1844, printed in H. F. Jenks, Historical Sketch of the Boston Latin School (preface to the School Catalogue, Boston, 1886), 35-37.

called Clarke's Introduction. In the fourth year, the fourth form, as well as the fifth and sixth, being furnished with desks, commenced "making Latin," as the phrase was, and to the books used by the third form Caesar's Commentaries were added. After this were read in succession by the three upper classes, Tully's Orations, the first books of the Aeneid, and the highest classes dipped into Xenophon and Homer. School opened at 7 in summer and 8 in winter, a.m., and at 1 p.m. throughout the year. It was ended at 11 a.m. and 5 p.m., at which hours the greater part went to writing school for an hour at a time — but a portion remained and took lessons in writing of "Master James," son of the Preceptor, and some young girls then came into school.

The discipline of the School was strict but not severe. The Master's — Old Gaffer, as we called him — desk was near the south-west corner of the room; Master James's desk was in the north-east corner. I remember to have seen no other instrument of punishment but the ferule in Master Lovell's day. Gaffer's ferule was a short, stubbed, greasy-looking article, which, when not in use, served him as a stick of sugar candy. The lightest punishment was one clap, the severest four — the most usual, two, one on each hand. The inflictions of the old gentleman were not much dreaded; his ferule seemed to be a mere continuation of his arm, of which the center of motion was the shoulder. It descended altogether with a whack, and there was the end of it, after blowing the fingers. But Master James's fashion of wielding his weapon was another affair. He had a gymnastic style of flourishing altogether unique — a mode of administering our experimentum ferules that was absolutely terrific. He never punished in Gaffer's presence, but whenever the old gentleman withdrew, all began to contemplate the "day's disaster," and to tremble, not when he "frown'd," for he did not frown, nor was he an ill-tempered person, but rather smiled sardonically, as if preparing for a pugilistic effort, and the execution as nearly resembled the motion of a flail in the hands of an expert thrasher as could be acquired by long practice. School broke up at 10 a.m. on Thursday, — a relic of an old custom to give opportunity to attend the " Thursday lecture " — which was I believe never improved in my day. School opened with "attendamus" to a short prayer. It ended with "deponite libros." The boys had a recess of a few minutes to go out in the yard — eight at a time. No leave was asked in words; but there was a short club of a yard in length which was caught up by some boy, round whom those who wished to go out clustered, and were drilled down to eight. The club was then held up near Master's nose, who nodded assent, when the eight vanished club in hand. Upon their return there was a rush to seize the club which was placed by the door, and a new conscription of eight formed, and so toties quoties.

To live in Boston was an education in itself during Harry's childhood and youth. The first ten years of his life were a period of economic prosperity, when Boston Harbor was thronged with vessels from Europe, Africa, the West Indies, and the southern colonies. It was, moreover, a period decisive in the history of the country. Between 1765 and 1775 the struggle between Parliament and the colonies passed through all the preliminary stages of resistance, compromise, unorganized rebellion, and attempted punishment, that finally ended in civil war. It was a struggle in which Harry's family played an important part from the first. Every argument was threshed out in the home circle. The Boston of his boyhood was an admirable nursery for statesmen.

In the year of Harry's birth, both sides of his family were in the Whig or opposition party. His grandfather Otis was a prominent opposition member of the Council, and his uncle James, whose famous speech against the writs of assistance had been delivered in 1761, was at the very height of his reputation and power as a patriot leader in the lower house of the General Court. James Otis, Jr., represented Massachusetts at the Stamp Act Congress, which met at Albany on October 7, 1765, the day before Harry was born; and the following years were the most active, if not the most fruitful of his career. Politics gradually absorbed his time, to the entire exclusion of his lucrative law practice. He was at the head of every measure taken up in legislature or town meeting to oppose the obnoxious acts of Parliament, and in constant correspondence with patriot leaders in other colonies. But his genius seemed to burn itself out under this stress of work, and his nature, ordinarily pleasure-loving, easy-going, and genial, became morose, resentful, and irascible. As early as 1763, entries in John Adams's diary testify to an extravagance of behavior and a violence of temper on the part of Otis which can be accounted for only by the charitable explanation of mental unsoundness. Towards the close of the sixties, these manifestations became more frequent. In the autumn of 1769 occurred his fatal altercation with a government official, in which he received a severe cut on the head. This blow permanently unbalanced his reason. With the exception of a few lucid intervals, the brilliant orator, lawyer, and patriot was never again himself. He retired to the country, and in December, 1771, on representation to the Probate Court that James Otis, Jr., was non compos mentis, Harry's father was appointed his guardian.

The insanity of James Otis was a grave loss to the patriot cause, and a heavy blow to Harry's family circle. The example of the elder man was a constant inspiration in after years to the youth, who unfortunately did not come into contact with his uncle while he was in possession of his faculties.

Another cause of uneasiness in Harry's family was the growing Toryism of his grandfather Gray. At the time Harry was born, Treasurer Gray was a somewhat shaky member of the popular party, but soon afterwards he began to gravitate toward the other side. 5 John Adams subse-

6 Cf. S. E. Morison, "The Property of Harrison Gray, Loyalist," Publications of Colonial Society of Mass., xiv.

quently ascribed his apostasy to Whiggery to the death, in 1766, of his political and religious mentor, the Reverend Jonathan Mayhew. "Had Mayhew lived, it is believed that Gray would never have been a refugee; but the seducers prevailed, though he had connected his blood with an Otis." The worthy Treasurer was, indeed, fond of religious exercise and susceptible to ecclesiastical influence, but no particular circumstance is necessary to explain his march toward Toryism. Men of means and established position, although liberal in their ideas, generally take the conservative side when the issue is fairly joined between rebellion and loyalty. Self-interest would have led Harrison Gray to remain a Whig, for his tenure of office was dependent on the popularly elected General Court. But the natural feelings of the wealthy merchant asserted themselves. He believed that Parliament had conceded enough in repealing the Stamp Act; and, abhorring the boycotts, riots, and other illegal methods employed by the patriots, he had no wish to make an issue out of the tax on tea.

Until the time came when there was no middle ground, Harrison Gray was a moderate Tory, and managed to retain his position of Treasurer by advancing to impecunious patriots in the General Court their salaries out of his own pocket, when the treasury was empty. But in 1774 came an event that forced him to choose irrevocably between patriotism and loyalism. Among the five coercive measures of that year by which Parliament intended to punish rebellious Boston for its mobs and tea parties, was the Massachusetts Government Act, suspending the Province Charter, and providing that the Council should henceforth be appointed by the Governor on a legal writ of mandamus. 6 Harrison Gray's name appeared sixth on

6 By the Province Charter, the Council was annually chosen by the whole legislature, and subject to the veto only of the Governor.

the list of Governor Gage's mandamus Councillors. Against the advice and persuasion of most of his friends, he accepted the call, and thus recognized the right of King and Parliament to suspend at will the rights and liberties of Massachusetts Bay. The immediate consequences of his action were estrangement from most of his friends, loss of his position, and unwelcome attentions from the mob; the final consequences were confiscation of his property and a permanent separation from friends and country.

The fact that Grandfather Gray became a loyalist had an important effect on the mind of young Harry. He heard both sides of the great questions of the day discussed in the family circle. In after years he could testify from personal conviction that it was possible to be at the same time a loyalist and an honest man, and that the relentless persecution of the loyalists both during and after the Revolution, was unjust. The full import of the Treasurer's acceptance of the King's mandamus, of course was not realized at the time either by Harry or by his parents. For the present he knew only that Grandfather Gray had become the object of popular opprobrium, and was no longer on speaking terms with Grandfather Otis.

The Otis family, who had quite as much at stake as Treasurer Gray, remained true to the patriot cause while the latter was treading the road that led to exile. Colonel Otis in 1770 renewed his active opposition in the Council, his election to which had been vetoed by Governor Bernard since 1766. In 1774, though seventy-two years of age, he was chosen President of the Council in the revolutionary Provincial Congress, at Watertown, one of the first of whose acts was to order the people of Massachusetts to cease paying taxes to Treasurer Gray. Harry's father was in close business and personal relations with the Adamses, Warrens, and Gerrys, but he did not take an active part in politics until after the Revolution broke out.

Meanwhile another member of the Otis family, Harry's "Aunt Warren," 7 was rising into fame as the poetess laureate of the patriot party. Mercy Otis, married in 1754 to James Warren, a wealthy farmer of Plymouth, led the humdrum life of a New England housewife down to the exciting period of the Tea Party. Her husband then became a prominent member of the General Court and the Caucus Club, and Mercy blossomed forth as afemme 'politique. With heart and soul in the patriot cause, she applied her pen in its aid — a proceeding that other and less gifted patriots' wives believed highly unbecoming to her sex. In 1774 she published a satirical poem on the Tea Party, entitled "The Squabble of the Sea-nymphs," and a more serious poem, "A Political Reverie," in which she looks

". . . with rapture at the distant dawn

When Patriot States in laurel crowns may rise, And ancient kingdoms greet them as allies."

In May, 1775, began the issue, in parts, of her "Group," a dramatic satire on the Tory Party that gave keen delight to the patriots. Though not deficient in her duties as wife and mother, Mercy took an Amazonian delight in the political arena, and all through the war advised her husband on political matters, corresponded with statesmen, and shot barbed shafts of satire into the enemy's flank.

This year 1775 brought Harry to his tenth year, when he could observe and understand much concerning the great

7 Down to a period within the memory of persona now living, American children never addressed their aunts and uncles by their Christian names. Otis always referred to Mercy Warren as "Aunt Warren."

events that were taking place in his native town. He always retained a vivid remembrance of the historic 19th of April, 1775. A part of the British soldiery was quartered in the Lechmere distillery, at the corner of Hancock and Cambridge Streets, not far from his parents' residence. The evening of the 18th was unusually hot for that season of the year. A general uneasiness was apparent in the streets; citizens conversed in low tones in groups of two or three; and a careful watch was kept on the movements of the troops. In the middle of the night Harry was taken from his bed and brought to the window, where, through the mist hanging over the pasture before his door, he saw the British regulars marching silently along on their way to Lexington and Concord. The following day, to quote his own words, 8 "I went to school for the last time. In the morning, about seven, Percy's brigade was drawn up, extending from Scollay's building thro' Tremont Street nearly to the bottom of the Mall, preparing to take up their march for Lexington. A corporal came up to me as I was going to school, and turned me off to pass down Court St. which I did, and came up School St. to the School-house. It may well be imagined that great agitation prevailed, the British line being drawn up only a few yards from the School-house door. As I entered the school, I heard the announcement of deponite libros, and ran home for fear of the regulars."

News of the Concord fight brought thousands of armed country people swarming around Boston, until it became apparent that the town would be besieged, in order to force out General Gage and his troops. Harry's father decided to follow the example of many patriot families, and remove his family before it became too late. The Otis homestead at Barnstable offered a convenient refuge. In

8 Letter cited above, in Catalogue of the Boston Latin School, 37.

the second week of May, 1775, Harry and his mother, bidding good-bye to Grandfather Gray and the Gray uncles and aunts, set out in the family chaise for the Great Marshes. Samuel A. Otis followed by sea with part of the household goods. It was the final parting of the ways for the Otis and Gray families : a separation that lasted the rest of their lives. Luckily for Harry, his father remained true to the cause which his uncle James had done so much to create. That cause must have seemed desperate enough in May, 1775, to an intelligent man who could compare the resources of Great Britain with those of the thirteen colonies. But the father's choice meant for Harry an opportunity for distinguished public service in a republican state, while the Gray uncles and cousins, who doubtless expected to reap the rewards of loyalty on this side of the water, were doomed to a monotonous life of pensioned exile at the court in which they had placed their trust.